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Text messages double young smokers' quit rates

日期：2019-03-02 09:08:07 作者：太史夷 阅读：

By Smoking cessation programmes that use text messaging can double the quit rate in young smokers, according to a clinical trial in New Zealand. The trial led by Anthony Rodgers, director of the Clinical Trials Research Unit at the University of Auckland, NZ, is the first to test the use of mobile phones as an aid to giving up smoking. In the study, over 850 young smokers who wanted to quit received text messages, such as: “Write down 4 people who will get a kick outta u kicking butt. Your mum, dad, m8s?” The smokers, whose average age was 25 years old, received five messages a day for a week before their designated “quit day”, and for the following four weeks. Then they received three messages a week for a further five months. They were also given one month of free personal texting, starting on their quit day, as an incentive. A similar group of young smokers received one month free texting six months after their designated quit day, but no text messages designed to help them quit. Six weeks after quit day, 28% of the group that received the texts claimed to have quit, compared with 13% of the control group. To check these self-reported results, the team analysed levels of cotinine, a nicotine breakdown product, in the saliva of one in 10 of the participants. The results were the same for both groups – about half of those who claimed to have given up were actually still smoking. Quit rates appeared to remain high after six months, although the results are less certain because many of the participants were lost to follow up. The study results are published in the journal Tobacco Control. Its editor, Simon Chapman of the University of Sydney, Australia, says he was initially “profoundly sceptical” that texting would help young people quit smoking, but was swayed by the results. “It’s an extraordinarily interesting development. There’s something about text messaging that seems to get through to young people, who are usually impervious to anti-smoking messages,” he says. When older smokers attempt to quit, between 15% and 30% are still smoke-free after six weeks, often using traditional techniques such as nicotine gum. But while 30% of young people in Western countries smoke, they have the lowest uptake of smoking-cessation programmes of any age group. That is despite many saying they would like to stop. Texting probably helps young people stop smoking in several ways, says Rodgers. It acts as “chewing gum for the fingers”, giving smokers something to do other than smoke. In the trial, the messages were also designed to encourage participants and to help them deal with symptoms of giving up, or to distract them with information about unrelated topics such as music and sport. The texting approach could be useful in places like China, which has 50 million young smokers, and 250 million mobile phone users with 5 million more signing up each month, says Rodgers. He also predicts that texting will become an increasingly popular method for public health interventions. “You can deliver bite-sized training courses right to the person’s pocket anywhere in the world,” he says. “There’s huge potential for blood pressure management, for depression, and for nutritional advice for weight control.” Journal reference: Tobacco Control (DOI: